Blast mine

Blast mine
Location	Lovakengj House, Great Kourend
Members only?	Yes
Rocks	Hard rocks
Monsters	None
Requirements	100% Favour with Lovakengj House

The Blast Mine is located in the northern section of the Lovakengj House in Great Kourend. Blast mining is a minigame, which grants Mining and Firemaking experience. Participating in the minigame requires 100% favour with the Lovakengj House.

Blast mining requires dynamite, which is made from volcanic sulphur, juniper charcoal, saltpetre, and a pot, then adding a ball of wool to the resulting dynamite pot. Players will be using it to blast chunks of valuable ores from within hard rock.

Gameplay

The dynamite explodes, blasting rock out of the cavity.

Players must first excavate the hard rock using a chisel, then use a pot of dynamite on the resulting cavity. Then, they must light the dynamite with a tinderbox and run at least three squares away from it, or about 15 damage will be taken.

Once the dynamite explodes, players should collect the blasted ore from the ground and deposit it into an ore sack near a blonde-haired operator. Players have one minute to deposit the blasted ore before it disintegrates, so be sure to deposit it immediately. When there are 450 of any single type of ore in the sack, it will become full and the player will need to collect it; the nearby operator will let the player know. Once the player is ready, they will be able to talk to the brown-haired operator to collect the ore they mined in noted form, along with Mining experience relative to the ores obtained.

20 Mining experience is granted for excavating the hard rock, and 50 Firemaking experience is granted for lighting the dynamite. The rest of the Mining experience is then collected along with the cleaned ores. On average, one dynamite equals about 200 Mining experience.

It should be noted that using the Blast Mine allows players to mine ore that are 10 levels higher than they normally are able to mine (for instance, runite ore at level 75 Mining).

It is also possible to use boosts when blast mining to get ores even higher above your level. The boost should be used before the ore spawns (i.e. when the dynamite explodes). If using for example the Dragon pickaxe, one could use its special attack to temporarily go from 72 to 75 Mining and have the chance to receive runite ore.

Strategy

File:Blast mining strategy.png

1-6: Spots to mine in order. 7: The sack for depositing blast ores.

To do Blast Mining efficiently, it is important to:

• Minimize the time wasted waiting for dynamite to explode.
• Minimize the time spent running to and from the deposit sack.
• Minimize the amount of damage taken.

This becomes much easier if a consistent strategy is used. One such strategy can be seen in the image to the left where the player moves from Spots 1 to 7.

Start by excavating and placing dynamite in Spots 1 and 2, then light them directly after each other, and run to Spot 3 (do not pick the ore up from the ground yet).

For Spots 3 to 5, simply excavate, place and light dynamite, and run to the next spot (do not pick up the ore). At Spot 6, light the dynamite as before and run and pick up the ore from Spot 4 and then pick up the ore from Spot 5. Make sure to stand at Spot 5 to avoid taking damage from the dynamite when it explodes.

Finally, pick up all of the ore left on the ground which should be (in the order they are picked up) 3, 6, 2, 1 and deposit them in the sack labeled 7.

The walls regenerate in time for you to start a new lap and no time is lost.

It might be a good idea to practice doing 3 to 6 before adding in 1 and 2 as you would risk that they disappear if you take too much time.

• Note: The reason Spots 3-6 are placed as they are is to make sure the player is always able to start excavating the next spot while waiting for the dynamite to explode. This is possible as the distance between each spot and the next is 3 squares meaning the player will not take any damage.

Including the initial time of chiseling the first rock and running to the Ore Sack at the end of the circuit to deposit the ore, the entire circuit takes 67 seconds to complete. Leaving the player a few seconds of leeway before the first blasted ore disappears.

Experience rates

Estimated probabilities based on the data blasting 1000 dynamite at 75 Mining in November 2016. Experience per hour is calculated by assuming 300 dynamite blasted per hour.

Ore	Base experience	Pieces	Percentage(%)	XP/h	GP/h
Coal	30	257	17	52782	539,510.7
Gold ore	60	368	25
Mithril ore	110	469	32
Adamantite ore	170	272	18
Runite ore	240	118	8
Total		1484	100

This is Jagex's estimated experience rates, based on the news article written on 14 January 2016. Keep in mind that the time required for gathering supplies were not factored into these calculations.

At level 70:
48k xp per hour with 49k gp per hour.

At level 80:
58k xp per hour with 497k gp per hour.

It should be noted that this large increase in profit is a result of gaining access to runite ore at level 75 - 10 levels lower than normal, a perk of using the Blast Mine.

At level 90:
64.4k xp per hour with 619k gp per hour.

At level 99:
69.8k xp per hour with 733k gp per hour.

Trivia

• If the player speaks to the operator about the machine, they will state that it is used to quickly clean the blasted ores, and that the design is a secret, with those who try to copy it would "never get it quite right. I bet their machine would break down all the time." This is a reference to the fact that the struts on Prospector Percy's water wheel in the Motherlode Mine often break, while the blast mine's machine never breaks.